MSI MAG B850I Edge Ti Wi-Fi review - a mighty mini-ITX motherboard

There are more great mini-ITX motherboards than ever these days, and MSI has decided to offer not one but two boards for AMD's latest CPUs, with the B850 version coming first. The MAG B850I Edge Ti Wi-Fi costs well south of $300, so it sits below competition from Asus while offering features comparable to similarly-priced options elsewhere, including PCIe 5.0 SSD support, Wi-Fi 7, and even a fan-cooled SSD heatsink.

If you're building a small form factor system, the best gaming motherboard for the task will need to keep itself cool, too. As well as large heatsinks, MSI has also squeezed in four fan headers, which should be enough for any task a tiny system will throw at it, and is more than most other mini-ITX boards out there as well.

It does use AMD's B850 chipset, though, so some features such as USB4 aren't here, while there are just two SATA ports and two M.2 ports. These are the usual limitations you'll see for mini-ITX, which is still niche, even if MSI has decided to offer a product in both mid-range and high-end chipsets from AMD and Intel this time around. Our detailed testing will show if it's worth your cash.

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Specs

Features

There are a few key features that differentiate the various other B850 and X870 mini-ITX boards on sale right now, and one of them is color, which we'll get to in a minute. The M.2 SSD layout is largely the same, although Asus does manage to offer a pair of PCIe 5.0 M.2 ports, whereas the rest currently have one and a second port that's PCIe 4.0, located on the rear, with the MAG B850I Edge Ti Wi-Fi lacking tool-free ports and heatsinks entirely.

Cooling varies a lot, too. We have a somewhat large 40mm fan on the MAG B850I Edge Ti Wi-Fi, which remained surprisingly quiet during most of our testing. That's unlike the smaller whiny fans Gigabyte uses on its boards that have proven to be far more intrusive. Under the large heatsink, the actual top M.2 slot also has underside cooling too using a thermal pad, but it's a shame not to see a tool free heatsink here.

Probably more problematic is the lack of a quick-release graphics card mechanism for its single PCIe 5.0 slot. These are all the rage on larger boards, with MSI's gadget being a button that you press to release the graphics card. That would be really useful in a cramped mini-ITX case, but sadly it's not included here.

Accessories that do benefit small case owners, though, include a 3-pin ARGB and front panel extension cables, as well as MSI's one-to-three EZ Conn-cable (V2). The former means connecting those components to a case that's already installed will be much easier, while the latter splits out MSI's special port on the PCB into a 4-pin fan header, USB 2.0 header, and a 3-pin ARGB header from a single cable.

The front panel Type-C port, meanwhile, is limited to just USB 3.2 Gen 2, which means it can't support the fastest external storage out there, nor does it offer any extra power delivery for fast charging, but it is still reasonably fast. You get a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 20Gbps Type-C port on the rear panel, but for USB 4, you'll need to step up to an X870 model.

The rear I/O panel is a little lacking in USB ports, with just five on offer in both USB 3.0 and USB 3.2 Gen 2 flavors. There are also USB BIOS Flashback and CMOS Clear ports, along with an HDMI port. The audio is Realtek's ALC4080 codec, which feeds two 3.5mm jacks and an optical output on the rear I/O panel.

MSI's EFI is clear, with lots of useful settings on the front page, and its recent revamp means it's high resolution and visually appealing, with no complaints over its layout or features. In fact, its fan control area is excellent, with fantastic control over fan curves, temperature inputs and anything else fan related. Its software isn't so great, at least not compared to the competition, as despite recent improvements, it's still a bit clunky and disjointed.

Something we'd suggest is essential, is tweaking the M.2 fan. Out of the box, this reacts to CPU temperature, and this means under load, the fan spins up needlessly. We'd suggest switching this to chipset temperature and applying the boost fan speed mode or a fixed speed you're happy to live with that keeps your SSD cool enough. Somewhere between 30-50 % would be fine, but only if you have a PCIe 5.0 SSD, as PCIe 4.0 models are much cooler and generally don't need the fan at all.

Design

This board's so-called titanium scheme is a more silvery gray, so is perhaps not as suited to a white build as Gigabyte's boards. Asus, meanwhile, has gone with black. Still, it's an attractive motherboard and, critically, its M.2 heatsink doesn't reach too high, and as a result the board is compatible with most coolers. Several Arctic and NZXT models that we had to hand fitted fine.

There's plenty of space around the CPU socket, and while the rear M.2 port lacks a heatsink, most mini-ITX cases have a cut-out area to get at the CPU cooler backplate, and this often allows you to get at the M.2 port and install a third-party heatsink.

The only thing we'd like to see are some tool-free fittings on the M.2 heatsink and ports. As it stands, the screw-based design is fiddly to use even out of a case and will be even more so once the board's inside. All of the MOSFETs for the power delivery are cooled using a single large heatsink that sits on top of all 13 power stages. There's also a small heatsink on the rear that helps keep that part of the VRMs cool, too.

Benchmarks

With a multi-core test result of 2,233 and single-core score of 139 in CinebenchR24, the MSI MAG B850I Edge Ti Wi-Fi squares up nicely to full-size boards, losing no performance when it comes to handling a Ryzen 9 9950X. The 1% low of 161fps and average of 212 fps were both on par too using an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super in Total War Warhammer 3.

As for audio, Realtek's ALC4080 codec performs much the same as the ALC1220 codec, so it was not surprising to see similar results in Rightmark Audio Analyzer, compared to similar motherboards, with a dynamic range of 106dBA and noise level of -105dBA.

Meanwhile, our PCIe 5.0 SSD was a little toasty as standard, peaking at 69°C. However, this fell dramatically by tweaking the M.2 fan speed to a fixed level that was still inaudible above the rest of the system. At 50% speed, the SSD temp dropped to a very impressive 59°C.

The VRMs peaked at 57°C in our stress test, which is only a couple of degrees warmer than much larger ATX boards such as the Gigabyte Aorus Elite X870 Wi-Fi7, while the board drew 349W from the wall. All in all, it's a solid showing from this board.

Price

The MSI MAG B850I Edge Ti Wi-Fi's current price of around $270 means it undercuts the equivalent Asus board by around $50, which is no small sum given the two boards have mostly similar features. ASRock and Gigabyte's alternatives for the B850 chipset are the real competition, though. Gigabyte's X870 mini-ITX offering, the Gigabyte's X870I Aorus Pro ICE, only costs a little more, too, but offers USB 4 and a few more modern features such as tool-free M.2 heatsinks.

ASRock's option is also worth looking at, with the Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi saving around $40 compared to the MSI board, but unsurprisingly, it has a reduced feature set too. As a result, MSI has done a good job of sticking to a price point that's sure to make things awkward for the competition, while maintaining a decent feature set.

Verdict

This is a solid motherboard for mini-ITX fans that need a board capable of handling powerful CPUs, but while still getting change from $300. It's not without its flaws, but, to be honest, no mini-ITX motherboard is.

Its M.2 SSD fan needs fine-tuning to get the most out of it with a PCIe 5.0 SSD, but if you're prepared to do that then MSI has created a great mini-ITX board here that has some really useful features. It has a below par number of rear USB ports, no quick-release mechanism for the graphics card and perhaps lacks some real stand-out features.

However, we really like the included extension and splitter cables that make building and upgrading a mini-ITX PC a whole lot easier that with some alternatives. It can also offer excellent cooling for the hottest SSDs, it has four fan headers, and it would handle a Ryzen 9 9950X or Ryzen 9800X3D fine. Coupled with a price that undercuts Asus and matches Gigabyte and MSI, while a late arrival, finally has a decent mini-ITX board for AMD fans.